All the news and information you need to prepare for HIMSS13. Destination HIMSS13 is our e-newsletter series devoted to preparing you for the HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, March 3-7 in New Orleans. On this page, you'll find previews of sessions and events, information about new products to be featured at the show, and helpful planning tips.

White House doc to talk leadership

NEW ORLEANS | February 12, 2013

If you have been waiting with bated breath to hear Bill Clinton’s closing keynote, you will most likely also enjoy hearing from his former White House physician, Eleanor (Connie) Mariano, known to her patient, President Clinton, as simply “Dr. Connie.” She will be speaking on Wednesday morning from 8:30-9:30 a.m., preceding Clinton’s closing keynote at 1 p.m.

The “View from the Top” sessions have always been popular at the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition, with this year’s line-up promising to be no different.

Though there are six View from the Top sessions slated for this year’s conference–two each day–possibly the crowning “View from the Top” will come by way of Dr. Connie’s session on Wednesday morning, where she will share “Lessons on Medicine and Leadership,” learned–well, from the top. She will undoubtedly expand upon her 2010 memoir, “The White House Doctor.”

Mariano is no stranger to the limelight. An expert on the care of VIPs, celebrities, and world leaders, Mariano is a frequent guest speaker at international conferences as well as on media specials such as CNN’s “The Health of the President.”

Nowadays, you will find her working at the Center for Executive Medicine, an organization she heads and founded, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mariano is the first military woman in the history of the United States to be appointed as Physician to the President, the first female director of the medical unit of the White House, and the first Filipino-American to become a rear admiral in the US Navy.

Tuesday morning’s Views from the Top session will look at the types of hackers and how to go about protecting your organization from them. Later that afternoon, there will be a View from the Top on the lessons learned from Katrina in the afternoon.

Wednesday’s afternoon session will feature a healthcare debate with a particularly political twist, as Karl Rove and James Carville take the stage together.

Learn how the University of Pennsylvania’s Health System transformed its information system via digitization. What started as an intention to reduce the paper load generated by a single patient visit, turned into a comprehensive overhaul of the hospital’s medical and financial records. The end result? Dramatically increased efficiencies across all departments. Learn More

Healthcare financial accounts are becoming the first line in consumer-driven healthcare interaction. Health plans that don't offer health spending accounts are missing out on the critical early consumer interaction that drives loyalty. Learn about key trends and important changes in health spending accounts and health plan administration, and find out how health plans and TPAs scope and implement the right solutions for themselves and their customers. Learn More

The explosion of mobile health and advances in medical technology has been accompanied by a parallel increase in acute-care complexity and coordination challenges. Today, test results, x-rays and even snapshots of wounds can be shared among clinicians in less time than it takes to go from one hospital floor to another, and patients are being treated by an increasing array of specialists – thanks to the flexibility of mobile health technology. Learn More

Memorial Hermann's expansion into the health insurance business is a key component to realizing its new vision to "advance health." Hear how this health system overcame challenges and took advantage of opportunities on its journey to develop value-added health plans and employer solutions. Learn More

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What's new at HIMSS15?

Carla Smith, MA, CNM, FHIMSS, Executive Vice President of HIMSS, previews areas new to the conference this year including the Cybersecurity Command Center and the HIMSS Health IT Value Suite.

We are at a cusp of the consumer driven health revolution. But to succeed, we need a new approach: one that goes beyond the apps and the sensors and makes better use of APIs to deliver the interoperability and security required to overcome our current challenges. More

You don't have to work in technology to know that hackers are getting more sophisticated. It seems like a new breach is in the news every week. But those of us who are dedicated to protecting healthcare data also spend a lot of time on something that's just as demanding. More

Joseph Kvedar, MD, recently wrote about the sign posts on the road to connected health adoption. Here, he outlines the connected health sign posts that are driving the change in attitude from "healthy skeptic" to "fear of missing out." More

Nobody is explicitly opposed to interoperability in healthcare IT. That would be like opposing the eradication of poverty, hunger or child slavery. People of goodwill just can't argue against it. The potential benefits are too clear. More